Why politicians should pay more attention to Twitter

Political Blogger

Monday 16 July 2012

HeraldScotland’s list of Scotland’s top 100 tweeters may have led to some long faces in political circles, confirming as it does that our politicians are basically, sorry chaps, not that popular. (Or at least not popular in Twitter terms: I’m sure their spouses, dogs and election agents think they’re marvellous.)

HeraldScotland analysed Twitter accounts across 10 sectors, broadcasting, sport, fashion and so on, to find the 10 most popular Twitter accounts in each. For the politicians I’m afraid that the numbers weren’t good. Read details here

First Minister Alex Salmond came top of the politics list with what sounds like a fairly healthy 23, 167 followers. That is until you realise that he had fewer followers than any of the other tweeters who filled the top spot in the nine other categories. In fact, he was beaten into last place by fashion’s top tweeter, Elle magazine columnist Stacey Duguid, who pipped him at the post with 23,838 followers. So why are our politicians failing to set the Twittersphere alight? The path to Twitter glory is quite simple really, just be engaging, informative and entertaining. Unfortunately, many politicians’ accounts seem instead to be striving, quite successfully, for dull, pompous or moribund. The dull political account is recognisable by the way it extols the virtues of leafleting in glowing terms that us normals might reserve for a snow-bound cabin filled with Jim Beam and George Clooney. Dull accounts are most likely to say: “Can it really be only six short weeks since I last shared a hand of whist with our fine Rotarians? Where has the time went?” The pompous account is favoured by big time politicians with too much thinking time on their hands (e.g. members of the Shadow Cabinet). “Spent this morning Building a Better Britain” they proclaim, sounding like a toddler playing at megalomaniacs and with a penchant for random capitalisation. Moribund accounts are kind of spooky, bringing to mind a haunted house where the residents all fled in terror. They consist of a couple of nervous tweets saying: “Is this thing on?” and “Gillian, can you print this out please?”, before dwindling to an embarrassed silence, heavy with the scent of failure. So much for where so many go wrong, but frankly does it matter? Shouldn’t politicians have better things to do? Of course they do, but communication is the lifeblood of politics and Twitter, handled well, offers politicians tremendous opportunities. It can connect them with constituents, opinion formers, experts in a whole range of fields. It also gives them an opportunity to be themselves, unmitigated by the critical gaze of the press, away from the hothouse atmosphere of the debating chamber. Activists involved in the Arab Spring uprisings have spoken about how contacts made through Twitter helped garner support at crucial moments. Not just because their fellow Tweeters believed in their cause, but because they felt a deeper connection borne of companiable conversation about music, family, books, life in general – Twitter made the political personal. I am an enthusiastic Tweeter and follow a number of MPs and MSPs. A random and very personal selection who seem to me to “get” Twitter include Patrick Harvie (@patrickharvie) of the Scottish Greens, Drew Smith, a Labour MSP (@DrewSm1th) and Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) of the SNP. One evening on Twitter, Humza Yousaf tweeted some utterly abhorrent racist abuse he had received. First, it was heartening to see my timeline fill with messages of support for him across the political spectrum, but I was surprised by the strength of my own reaction, how angry I was on his behalf. I would have been shocked and angered in any circumstances but I realised that my feelings were intensified because, through Twitter, I had learned more about him as a person as well as a politician. The point is not that I am about to rush off and vote SNP, but that Twitter had enabled me, albeit in a very small way, to see him not just as an MSP but as a three-dimensional human being. Of course “humanising” politicians is often simply a cynical exercise in vote-winning but, in an age when politicians’ stock is so low, connecting electors and the elected is an important task that goes beyond party politics. Twitter is not for everyone. If politicians can’t do it or don’t like it they should steer clear or stick to posting links to speeches and other substantial pieces of work. It is also no substitute for old-fashioned hard graft, but it can bring politicians closer to the people they serve, just keep mention of leaflets to a minimum.

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Why politicians should pay more attention to Twitter

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